5 ms·

How is the right non-divestable if you can waive it? More importantly, how could wikipedia possibly work if contributors retained copyright in any form over the

How is the right non-divestable if you can waive it? More importantly, how could wikipedia possibly work if contributors retained copyright in any form over their submitted articles and edits?

throw93949444 3mo ago
The only legal way to waive copyright rights, is to hire an employee to produce the work. Individual contributors are not cogs in a machine, employees are! And if someone produced work for 15 years, and edited 10000 articles... very hard to argue it is not permanent worker! Wikipedia can easily work as "marketplace of ideas", linking original authors. That is not possible if you have editorial policy, political opinions and work like a corporation or a news paper.
- some_random 3mo ago
  A "marketplace of ideas" wikipedia is not wikipedia, that's twitter or maybe reddit. More importantly, your theory of copyright being unwaivable without an employee-employer relationship makes the entire internet unworkable. Nothing could accept user input of any kind unless it can be ruled uncopyrightable.
  - throw93949444 3mo ago
    Just link original author, and do notndestroy their work, even copyleft license wikipedia uses demands that!
    - some_random 3mo ago
      If editing an article opens you up to copyright lawsuits for "destroying their work", it's completely untenable.
      - true_religion 3mo ago
        With a moral rights framework, that depends on the content of the edit. If for example you edit in racist views and leave the attribution of the original author because it’s just a one word change from “the holocaust” to “the alleged holocaust”, then yes you are open to a lawsuit for any harm that results from that malicious edit. This is especially true with my example as that view would run afoul of criminal statue in many counties.
        some_random 3mo ago
        So that's what I assumed too but it turns out that's not true, at least in Canada. The Flight Stop example was cited as an example of an artist asserting their moral rights to their art to prevent the owner from tying bows around the necks of a his flock of fiberglass geese for the holidays. For art in Canada, modifying it at all prejudices the author. The standard for other works is higher, but still nothing as high as you think. https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flight-stop/ https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flig... Edit: I also wonder how or if this works in reverse, if someone wrote a fantastic article on numerology or whatever with a screed halfway through, would removing it from the article violate their moral rights? I think any framework where the answer is no is also probably going to be unworkable.
    - cccbbbaaa 3mo ago
      Authors and revisions are available in the history tab. Editing an article is permitted by the license.
- bawolff 3mo ago
  > The only legal way to waive copyright rights This is generally not true, but more importantly Wikipedia does not ask people to waive their copyright rights, only license it under a creative commons license. Its no different than how open source software works.
ghaff 3mo ago
It seems to be a somewhat murky area of law. In Europe (and, I guess Canada) you can't really have public domain because of moral rights that you can't waive. IANAL but I've talked with IP lawyers about this and they've been sortof "Yes this is often kinda true." So the broad public domain that is generally true of the US government and which individuals can release in the US isn't really true in Europe as I understand it.
- some_random 3mo ago
  That's pretty crazy, seems like a ticking time bomb to me. I assume the precise meaning of "moral rights" varies by jurisdiction, but if from the integrity part of the Canadian definition started being broadly applied it would seriously change how things like moderation need to be done. I'm not a lawyer but I wouldn't be comfortable making any kind of modifications to text submitted by a Canadian contributor, even basic stuff like PII redaction. I find the Flight Stop example here pretty chilling https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flight-stop/ https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flig...
  - ghaff 3mo ago
    As I say, a murky area. The MIT license was basically created because the X-Windows folks wanted to release it into the public domain but IBM would have nothing to do with it so the MIT lawyers came up with a permissive license. https://opensource.com/article/19/4/history-mit-license https://opensource.com/article/19/4/history-mit-license
    - fortran77 3mo ago
      What is “X-Windows”?
      - Giefo6ah 3mo ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
bawolff 3mo ago
> More importantly, how could wikipedia possibly work if contributors retained copyright in any form over their submitted articles and edits? Note, the cc-by-sa 4.0 license that wikipedia uses requires you to waive any moral rights to the extent possible. In canada if you are the creator of the work, then you can waive all of them, so its really a moot point. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.en In general though, moral rights tend to be the sort of thing where they only come into play if you're being an asshole, so it mostly doesn't matter.
sandworm101 3mo ago
You waive by actively deciding not to enforce your rights. You just cannot divest those rights. So those who buy art cannot use contract to totally escape the artist. If you buy art, the artist retains a degree of control. The pivotal case in canada involved a mall sculpture of some geese in flight. The mall put red bows on the geese during christmas. No dice. The original artist said that was an unacceptable change. They needed to get the artist permission before making such a change.

How is the right non-divestable if you can waive it? More importantly, how could wikipedia possibly work if contributors retained copyright in any form over their submitted articles and edits?

throw93949444 3mo ago

The only legal way to waive copyright rights, is to hire an employee to produce the work. Individual contributors are not cogs in a machine, employees are! And if someone produced work for 15 years, and edited 10000 articles... very hard to argue it is not permanent worker! Wikipedia can easily work as "marketplace of ideas", linking original authors. That is not possible if you have editorial policy, political opinions and work like a corporation or a news paper.

some_random 3mo ago
A "marketplace of ideas" wikipedia is not wikipedia, that's twitter or maybe reddit. More importantly, your theory of copyright being unwaivable without an employee-employer relationship makes the entire internet unworkable. Nothing could accept user input of any kind unless it can be ruled uncopyrightable.
- throw93949444 3mo ago
  Just link original author, and do notndestroy their work, even copyleft license wikipedia uses demands that!
  - some_random 3mo ago
    If editing an article opens you up to copyright lawsuits for "destroying their work", it's completely untenable.
    - true_religion 3mo ago
      With a moral rights framework, that depends on the content of the edit. If for example you edit in racist views and leave the attribution of the original author because it’s just a one word change from “the holocaust” to “the alleged holocaust”, then yes you are open to a lawsuit for any harm that results from that malicious edit. This is especially true with my example as that view would run afoul of criminal statue in many counties.
      - some_random 3mo ago
        So that's what I assumed too but it turns out that's not true, at least in Canada. The Flight Stop example was cited as an example of an artist asserting their moral rights to their art to prevent the owner from tying bows around the necks of a his flock of fiberglass geese for the holidays. For art in Canada, modifying it at all prejudices the author. The standard for other works is higher, but still nothing as high as you think. https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flight-stop/ https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flig... Edit: I also wonder how or if this works in reverse, if someone wrote a fantastic article on numerology or whatever with a screed halfway through, would removing it from the article violate their moral rights? I think any framework where the answer is no is also probably going to be unworkable.
  - cccbbbaaa 3mo ago
    Authors and revisions are available in the history tab. Editing an article is permitted by the license.
bawolff 3mo ago
> The only legal way to waive copyright rights This is generally not true, but more importantly Wikipedia does not ask people to waive their copyright rights, only license it under a creative commons license. Its no different than how open source software works.

ghaff 3mo ago

It seems to be a somewhat murky area of law. In Europe (and, I guess Canada) you can't really have public domain because of moral rights that you can't waive. IANAL but I've talked with IP lawyers about this and they've been sortof "Yes this is often kinda true." So the broad public domain that is generally true of the US government and which individuals can release in the US isn't really true in Europe as I understand it.

some_random 3mo ago
That's pretty crazy, seems like a ticking time bomb to me. I assume the precise meaning of "moral rights" varies by jurisdiction, but if from the integrity part of the Canadian definition started being broadly applied it would seriously change how things like moderation need to be done. I'm not a lawyer but I wouldn't be comfortable making any kind of modifications to text submitted by a Canadian contributor, even basic stuff like PII redaction. I find the Flight Stop example here pretty chilling https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flight-stop/ https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/michael-snow/key-works/flig...
- ghaff 3mo ago
  As I say, a murky area. The MIT license was basically created because the X-Windows folks wanted to release it into the public domain but IBM would have nothing to do with it so the MIT lawyers came up with a permissive license. https://opensource.com/article/19/4/history-mit-license https://opensource.com/article/19/4/history-mit-license
  - fortran77 3mo ago
    What is “X-Windows”?
    - Giefo6ah 3mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

bawolff 3mo ago

> More importantly, how could wikipedia possibly work if contributors retained copyright in any form over their submitted articles and edits? Note, the cc-by-sa 4.0 license that wikipedia uses requires you to waive any moral rights to the extent possible. In canada if you are the creator of the work, then you can waive all of them, so its really a moot point. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.en In general though, moral rights tend to be the sort of thing where they only come into play if you're being an asshole, so it mostly doesn't matter.

sandworm101 3mo ago

You waive by actively deciding not to enforce your rights. You just cannot divest those rights. So those who buy art cannot use contract to totally escape the artist. If you buy art, the artist retains a degree of control. The pivotal case in canada involved a mall sculpture of some geese in flight. The mall put red bows on the geese during christmas. No dice. The original artist said that was an unacceptable change. They needed to get the artist permission before making such a change.